Ministry of Trade Integrates System to Simplify Export-Import Licensing

TheIndonesia.id - Indonesian Ministry of Trade has issued new regulations that seek to simplify the process to obtain export and import licenses for businesses.

Minister of Trade Muhammad Lutfi has signed ministerial regulations No. 19/2021 and 20/2021 that set out the procedure for export and import, respectively, and both are derivatives of Law No. 11/2020, also known as Omnibus Law on Job Creation.

Upon this signing, the Ministry will now implement a single submission mechanism for the issuance of export and import licenses, which aims to integrate data between ministries and state agencies and to reduce data replication and/or duplication.

In the new procedure, businesses can submit their application through Indonesia National Single Window (INSW) system, which the hub for licensing service across ministries and state agencies. The INSW system has also been integrated with Inatrade – an existing system owned and run by the Ministry – and the Ministry claimed this will make licensing process more efficient.

“Besides the speed and convenience, export and import licenses issued through the single submission system use digital signature and barcode to guarantee the authenticity and security of data and information on the documents,” acting director general of foreign trade at the Ministry, Indrasari Wisnu Wardhani, said in a statement on Sunday, December 12.

He admitted that during the initial implementation of the single submission system, there were a number of challenges related to system integration. For example, data elements sent from INSW system didn’t match with the ones in Inatrade, and this caused the process to be stalled. However, Wardhani said the Ministry continues to maintain coordination with the National Single Window Institution, and he revealed that process has started to run normally.

The Ministry also continues to inform business owners and entrepreneurs on the new system, as well as educating them on the procedure, as many are still not familiar with it.

“Current challenges in licensing process aren’t caused by the regulation but rather business owners’ unfamiliarity with the single submission system,” Wardhana said.

He said the Ministry provides assistance and consultancy through online platform as well as tutorial videos.

As of December 11, from 4,548 submissions received by INSW, 3,882 were approved by Inatrade. From that number, 2.032 were rolled back because they weren’t completed and didn’t meet requirements, 1,608 licenses were issued, and the rest were still on process.